Friday, August 31, 2012

The
finance, insurance and real estate industries spend approximately
$1,331 a minute on influencing our leaders. A new tool makes it easier
for you to find out which ones.

How much is democracy worth to you?

If you’re like most people, it’s priceless. But for the hedge funds
and insurance companies on Wall Street, it does have a price tag. And
now, thanks to a new report by Global Exchange, we know the number on
it: approximately $4.2 billion. That’s how much the Finance, Insurance,
and Real Estate (F.I.R.E.) sector has invested in political influence
through campaign contributions and lobbying since 2006. That comes to
$1,331 a minute spent on political power. READ MORE

James Kwak, The Baseline Scenario: "It couldn't hurt
for the Democrats to have a decent response to the small-government
attack line, and that starts with having some kind of understanding of
what the federal government actually is and does."

The conventional wisdom about Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as
his running mate is that it sets the stage for a debate about the role
of government in society, between Romney and Ryan as champions of small
government and Obama and Biden as supporters of big government. Indeed,
that’s the thrust of the lead story in the Wall Street Journal [last week]. And it’s pretty clear why Mitt Romney wants to have this debate.

First, the politics: The choice of Ryan should be slightly
encouraging to Democrats for one reason—it confirms what the polls and Nate Silver
have been saying for months: President Obama is winning, though not by
much. One of Romney’s options was to simply run against the incumbent,
pointing to the bad economy and making a bland case for himself as some
kind of business guru. Apparently that wasn’t working, so he decided to
double down on the Tea Party and the idea of radically reforming
government—something that he’s been distinctly bad at throughout the
election so far.

In the longer term, Democrats should be worried, because Romney and
Ryan have the better debating position. Their position is simple and
superficially compelling: Government is bad. READ MORE

Brad Friedman, The Brad Blog: "A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent." Read the Article

Employees of financial-services companies have given Democrats $20 million less than they have given to Republicans during the current election cycle. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By Caitlin Dickson, The Daily Beast

19 August 12

In a reversal from 2008, employees of
financial-services companies have given most of their $128 million and
counting in 2012 political donations to groups and candidates on the
right. Sorry, Obama.

n
2008 Wall Street loved Barack Obama. Four years later, even after
billions in bailout money went to the banks under Obama's watch, the
tide has turned - by about $20 million.

That's the difference between what securities and
investment firms and their employees have given to Republican
candidates, the GOP, and right-leaning political-action committees
during the current election cycle ($56 million) and what they've given
to Democrats ($35 million), according to data compiled by the Center for
Responsive Politics.

Goldman Sachs and its workers, for instance, made more
than $6 million in political contributions in 2008, according to the
CRP, which based its research on data provided by the Federal Election
Commission. Some 75 percent of that loot went to the Democratic Party or
one of its candidates, and 25 percent went to Republicans. In the 2012
cycle, the firm or its employees have so far given nearly $5 million,
with the majority (56 percent) going to the GOP.

One reason for the shift, according to the CRP, might
be that people in finance tend to donate to the party that controls
Congress and therefore the finance committees. In 2008 that was the
Democrats. Today it's the Republicans. READ MORE

More than 1.6 million American kids attend charter schools, which
emerged in the early 1990s. Whatever their original intent, charters are
fundamentally restructuring the school system by placing it in private —
often for-profit — hands. They're making teachers and staff work harder
and longer for less pay, usually without union benefits or protection.

Restructuring may seem the best option. Urban school districts have
long struggled to serve their students. And many of us know firsthand —
as former students, teachers, administrators, or parents — that many of
America's public schools require radical change.

Charter proponents claim that their schools are less bureaucratic and
more efficient, and thus save taxpayer money. Yet evidence is mounting
to show that the opposite is true. READ MORE

How far can right-wingers influence Romney on foreign policy, one of the campaign’s blank slates?

August 14, 2012

Mitt Romney, a corporate takeover executive in the private sector, is
now in full political makeover mode as he campaigns for president,
starting with his attention-deflecting choice of radical U.S. Rep. Paul
Ryan as his running mate.

Washington insiders recognize the symptoms of a panicked campaign and
see that the attempted makeover is not complete—and won’t be until the
Republican National Convention adjourns and the fall campaign begins.
And so we are seeing seemingly bizarre musings from known GOP ideologues
trying to fill in Romney’s blank pages.

The latest example from this not quite stage-managed spectacle is the
emergence of Grover Norquist, the GOP’s longtime anti-tax crusader,
now saying the Romney-Ryan pronouncement that the Pentagon budget must
be protected from Democrats’ cuts is wrong, because, like anything big
in government, there’s excessive spending, waste and fraud to be
cut—even in the military.

The Romney camp is boldly lying because they are making a calculation that it will work! We better hope it doesn't.

August 13, 2012

The Romney campaign has turned to a strategy of swamping the public
with flat-out, blatant lies, one after another, again and again,
endlessly and lavishly repeated. They do this because they are making a
calculation that it will work! So what is going on? And can democracy
survive this assault?
The Growing List Of Lies

In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human.
In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing
inside their skulls. But with no federal guidelines in place, an
awkward question hovers above the work: How human must a chimera be
before more stringent research rules should kick in?"
-- Washington Post article on human/animal hybrids, 11/20/04

The
front page of the Washington Post several years ago
had the below, incredibly
revealing story on human/animal hybrids. The respected British newspaper The Guardian in 2008 posted a key story on the first human/animal hybrid embryos. Yet another revealing article on these bizarre hybrids appeared in the nature magazine National Geographic. Scientists are experimenting with
creating hybrids between humans and animals called "chimeras"
without clear ethical guidelines. And remember that military and intelligence
services are generally at least 10 years in advance of any research being
done in public. READ MORE

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Karl Rove is no longer merely Bush’s Brain; he’s the man who swallowed the Republican Party.

August 22, 2012

The following is a transcript of a Democracy Now! interview with Craig Unger on Karl Rove's comeback.

Our guest for the hour is Craig Unger, who has written Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power .
In it, he writes, "Undeniably, he’s back," talking about Karl Rove. "He
has re-invented himself. He is not merely Bush’s Brain; he’s the man
who swallowed the Republican Party. As the maestro orchestrating the
various super-pacs, he has inspired the wealthiest people on the right
to pony up what could amount to $1 billion and has created an unelected
position for himself of real enduring power with no term limits. Karl
Rove has become the ultimate party boss." Craig Unger, lay out his rise
to power, his fall, and then his rise again. READ MORE

Evidence suggests that differences between liberals and conservatives begin to emerge at an early age.

August 20, 2012

"There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people:
religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin," laments Linus van Pelt in a
1961 Peanuts comic strip. Yet in today's hyperpartisan political
climate, religion and politics are obsessively debated, while the
"American people" that politicians and reporters constantly refer to
seem hopelessly divided. Meanwhile, psychologists are increasingly
exploring the political arena, examining not just the ideological
differences, but also the numerous factors - temperamental,
developmental, biological, and situational - that contribute to the
formation and maintenance of partisan political beliefs.

Personality differences are a leading candidate in the race toward
understanding the rift between political liberals and conservatives.
Using data compiled from nearly 20,000 respondents, Columbia University
researcher Dana Carney and colleagues found that two common personality
traits reliably differentiated individuals with liberal or conservative
identifications. Liberals reported greater openness, whereas
conservatives reported higher conscientiousness. This means that
liberals (at least in their own estimation) saw themselves as more
creative, flexible, tolerant of ambiguity, and open to new ideas and
experiences. Across the political personality divide, conservatives
self-identified as more persistent, orderly, moralistic, and methodical.
These personality differences were even reflected in the bedroom
belongings and offices or workspaces of ideological undergrads, with
liberal students collecting more CDs, books, movie tickets, and travel
paraphernalia, as opposed to their conservative peers, who showed more
sports décor, U.S. flags, cleaning supplies, calendars, and
uncomfortable furniture. Lest you think that the partisan personality is
a uniquely American phenomenon, similar findings on personality and
political ideology have emerged in samples across the globe, from North
America, Europe, and Australia. READ MORE

1. Ryan’s position opposing abortion even in cases of rape, and his
attempts to define cytoblasts as legal ‘persons’ (which would outlaw all
termination of pregnancies and some forms of birth control) came under
scrutiny when Republican Todd Akin, running for the Senate in Missouri, provoked a furor. Akin
said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape because in ‘legitimate
rape’ the woman’s body rejects fertilization. Akin’s insensitivity to a
situation that affects a third of a million American women every decade,
plus his ignorance of Biology 101, drew widespread condemnation. Mitt
Romney put out a statement that both he and Ryan believed abortion was
permitted in case of rape. Problem: Ryan has repeatedly opposed that position and appears to agree with Akin more than with his running mate.

2. Ryan keeps attacking Prsident Obama’s stimulus program now .
But in 2002 when then President George W. Bush proposed stimulus
spending, Ryan supported it. “What we’re trying to accomplish today with
the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help
the unemployed,” Ryan told MSNBC in 2002.READ MORE
3. Even more embarrassing,